1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of preventing fraudulent telephone calls in a telecommunications network, and more particularly but not limited to, the detection and termination of fraudulent long-distance domestic or international telephone calls which may be originated either domestically or internationally.
2. Description of the Related Art
A significant number of domestic and international telephone users fraudulently initiate and establish domestic and international telephone calls to or from domestic or international locations. These fraudulent calls may be connected by using fraudulent credit card billing numbers, accessing private networks or using other methods.
Typically, the fraudulent telephone caller attempts to fraudulently obtain telephone service by transmitting a fraudulent billing number to the telephone network. The fraudulent caller may either steal the billing number from another party or gain entry to a private network by using various methods, e.g. billboards. This second method is especially popular since it cannot be detected by the private network administration until an excessive number of call minutes are completed. One technique currently being used to reduce fraudulent calls, domestically, involves a validation process to ascertain whether the submitted directory number in fact corresponds to an active billing number. Thus, this type of billing number validation process does not distinguish stolen calling card/billing numbers, or calls made through private networks. In this instance, the telephone network provides telephone service and bills the call to an improper billing number and the wrong customer/subscriber.
Accordingly, the telephone company providing the domestic or international telephone service would preferably desire a network feature which can block suspicious fraudulent domestic or international telephone calls, thereby preventing completion of the telephone call. Thus, it is desirable to determine whether an attempted telephone call is potentially fraudulent in order for the telephone network system to make an informed decision on whether or not to provide service to the telephone caller's request. This decision of whether to provide telephone service to a potential fraudulent telephone call may include validation of both originating and terminating parties, i.e, calling and called parties. It would also be desirable to minimize the amount of improper terminations of telephone calls which may in fact be non-fraudulent. Finally, it is also desirable to minimize the amount of performance degradation experienced by the various affected telephone switching centers which perform the fraudulent call determination process.